Sunday, 2 March 2014

Spotlight: Excerpt + #Giveaway: Sunbolt by Intisar Khanani

Title- Sunbolt

Series- The Sunbolt Chronicles #
1

By-Intisar Khanani

Publication Date- June 17, 2013

Published By- Purple Monkey
Press

Genre- YA Fantasy

The winding streets and narrow alleys of Karolene hide many
secrets, and Hitomi is one of them. Orphaned at a young age, Hitomi has learned
to hide her magical aptitude and who her parents really were. Most of all, she
must conceal her role in the Shadow League, an underground movement working to
undermine the powerful and corrupt Archmage Wilhelm Blackflame.When the League gets word that Blackflame intends to
detain—and execute—a leading political family, Hitomi volunteers to help the
family escape. But there are more secrets at play than Hitomi’s, and much worse
fates than execution. When Hitomi finds herself captured along with her
charges, it will take everything she can summon to escape with her life.

“Look what’s here,” the leader says, calling
the other soldiers’ attention to me. My steps falter as they veer towards me,
quickly closing the distance between us. “What do you think she is? A mutt or a
half-breed?”

A half-breed
they might not bother because those who are half-human and half-something-else
often have some strength or ability that could cause more trouble than these
men are looking for. Unfortunately for me, the secret I guard is fully human. I
glance sideways at the fish seller in the stall beside me, wondering if I can
count on her. She is young, no more than a handful of years past my own
fifteen, her eyes wide with panic. No help there. I swallow hard, trying to
ease the fear thrumming through my veins.

I begin to back
away, offering a hesitant smile to the soldiers. A smile? What am I doing? I
should run—

But it’s
already too late. Two of the soldiers have moved ahead of the others, circling
past me. I’m surrounded.

“Mutt,” says
one of the soldiers, taking in my features. I feel myself flush slightly. My
parents may have been from different lands, but a good number of islanders have
other blood in them, even if it dates back a few generations. How else did the
noble women come by their sleek hair? Their problem isn’t with my bloodline.
It’s with the fact that I visibly don’t belong, and I’m an easy target.

“Half-breed,”
two others posit, their boots sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet.

“Definitely a
mutt,” a soldier behind me says. He’s come to a stop a couple paces away, no doubt
waiting for his leader to make the first move.

“Well, girl,
what are you?” the leader asks.

I refuse to answer in the words
they’ve afforded me. “Human,” I say. “Sir.”

In the
darkness, something chuckles, a sound like the rustling of dead grasses, the
snapping of winter-hardened twigs underfoot.

“Amused?” Kol
asks. “I thought you would appreciate her.”

“Your men run
like startled rabbits. Their noses even twitch the same way.”

I press my back
against the wall, turn my head to face the door, and then slowly, while the
lantern still lights the room, slide a glance towards the speaker.

Kol tries to
laugh. “Humans.”

The creature
doesn’t answer. He sits against the far wall, his legs crossed, his back
resting against the stones. He is tall and gaunt, so thin his face is but a
skull stretched over with skin, his eyes so faintly colored that I can almost
imagine they are not even there. His hair falls to his shoulders in a straggly
fringe of white. His tunic and pants hang off his frame, and his hands where
they rest over his knees are hardly more than bone. If he were human, he would
be dead.

Kol says,
“You’ll want to know a thing or two about your dinner.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Intisar Khanani grew up a nomad
and world traveler. Born in Wisconsin, she has lived in five different states
as well as in Jeddah on the coast of the Red Sea. She first remembers seeing
snow on a wintry street in Zurich, Switzerland, and vaguely recollects having
breakfast with the orangutans at the Singapore Zoo when she was five.

Intisar currently resides in
Cincinnati, Ohio, with her husband and two young daughters. Until recently, she
wrote grants and developed projects to address community health and infant
mortality with the Cincinnati Health Department—which was as close as she could
get to saving the world. Now she focuses her time on her two passions: raising
her family and writing fantasy.

Intisar’s latest projects
include a companion trilogy to her debut novelThorn, featuring a new
heroine introduced in her free short storyThe Bone Knife
… and of course, she’s hard at work on the remaining installments of The Sunbolt Chronicles.

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About Me

I live in beautiful Durban, South Africa. My love for writing started in the 5th grade but I've only now had the time and patience to complete my first novel. I wish to continue for many years, even when I have retired to a tiny lake-side cottage in the mountains somewhere :)